Imagine that you enjoy alcohol, as in you like to pair wine with cheese and you like to relax with a beer after work. Now imagine that I tell you that alcohol should be banned, and as evidence I show you a news story of some teenagers who don’t know how to control their drinking and drink too much and get into a fight with police and almost die. Not only would you think that I’m hopelessly uninformed about alcohol, but you would also feel vaguely threatened by me because when I say that alcohol should be banned, I’m implying that harmless wine connoisseurs like you should be persecuted and locked in cages. You might point out that the teenagers are actually the victims, and the real perpetrators are the store that sold alcohol to minors, and the parents who failed to teach their children what responsible drinking looks like. You might also say that it’s a violation of personal freedom to tell responsible adults what they can and cannot drink in the privacy of their own home.
You would be absolutely right, and all of your arguments would apply equally to psychedelics.
We are heading into a direction where drinking too much gets more and more accepted. My grandmother has never drunk alcohol. My grandfather has drunk only little. My father and mother had been drunk sometimes. And I was drinking almost every week during university. Please tell me why we kill ourselves, and what can we do about it if not with bans. I would support no alcohol and no cigarettes. I want to believe that we can be happy without them.
But banning a socially accepted substance, and banning a socially not accepted substance is different. It needs to be different, because black market would flourish if they are fine with it. Now imagine you allow shrooms, it gets socially accepted and now we have another problem that we cannot deal with.
It’s enough to see misbehaving drunk people in subways, it’s already too much.
Thanks for the reply.
Let’s do a thought experiment.
Imagine that you enjoy alcohol, as in you like to pair wine with cheese and you like to relax with a beer after work. Now imagine that I tell you that alcohol should be banned, and as evidence I show you a news story of some teenagers who don’t know how to control their drinking and drink too much and get into a fight with police and almost die. Not only would you think that I’m hopelessly uninformed about alcohol, but you would also feel vaguely threatened by me because when I say that alcohol should be banned, I’m implying that harmless wine connoisseurs like you should be persecuted and locked in cages. You might point out that the teenagers are actually the victims, and the real perpetrators are the store that sold alcohol to minors, and the parents who failed to teach their children what responsible drinking looks like. You might also say that it’s a violation of personal freedom to tell responsible adults what they can and cannot drink in the privacy of their own home.
You would be absolutely right, and all of your arguments would apply equally to psychedelics.
Sincerely, A psychedelics connoisseur
We are heading into a direction where drinking too much gets more and more accepted. My grandmother has never drunk alcohol. My grandfather has drunk only little. My father and mother had been drunk sometimes. And I was drinking almost every week during university. Please tell me why we kill ourselves, and what can we do about it if not with bans. I would support no alcohol and no cigarettes. I want to believe that we can be happy without them.
But banning a socially accepted substance, and banning a socially not accepted substance is different. It needs to be different, because black market would flourish if they are fine with it. Now imagine you allow shrooms, it gets socially accepted and now we have another problem that we cannot deal with.
It’s enough to see misbehaving drunk people in subways, it’s already too much.